Finally, An Ending to an Enduring 9/11 Photo Mystery

It wasn’t her photo. She wasn’t even the one who had found it, but when a friend gave __Elizabeth Stringer Keefe__the photo of a wedding party that she had found at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, Keefe knew she needed to return it to its rightful owner.

13 years later, Keefe was finally able to do just that.

Over the years since the attacks, Keefe had tried to find any of the six people in the photo. Every year, Keefe would post the photo to her social-media accounts, hoping that someone would come forward to claim it, according to Mashable. This year, though, when she made her annual plea for help, the internet listened.

She shared the photo on Facebook and Twitter and was featured on a Boston blog named Universal Hub. That’s when her story and the photo went viral. Her tweet garnered attention from all corners of the internet, wracking up almost 70,000 retweets. Everyone — including country star Blake Shelton — wanted to help find the owner of the photo.

While Keefe had sent out the photo time after time, this year thanks to the power of social media, something incredible happened — she found them all. "Attention wonderful world: ALL SIX PEOPLE ARE ALIVE AND WELL AND I HAVE JUST SPOKEN TO ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!!" she tweeted.

Attention wonderful world: ALL SIX PEOPLE ARE ALIVE AND WELL AND I HAVE JUST SPOKEN TO ONE OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!! #Happyending#911photo

The photo’s owner was a man named Fred Mahe. He came across the photo on Twitter and sent a message to Keefe to let her know that he was at the wedding.

Mahe worked at the World Trade Center and kept the photo of his friend’s Aspen wedding on his desk, but it was lost in the rubble after the Twin Towers collapsed. “The picture was at my desk in the World Trade Center, Tower Two, on the 77th floor,” Mahe told Boston Magazine. “The picture has been kept safe by [Keefe] for the last 13 years.” Mahe said he wasn’t yet at work as the attacks began on 9/11, and, “thankfully never got a chance to go up to my office.”

For his part, Mahe prefers to remember September 12, 2001, because it was that day when he saw “the best of humanity,” as rescue efforts and support poured in from around the world. Now, 13 years later, September 12th is also the day he was able to reconnect with a piece of his past thanks to Keefe. In a tweet, he dubbed her “100% 9/12”. High praise indeed.